Sharks show some life

Thursday

Mar 20, 2008 at 6:00 AM

The Sharks weren’t the only team fighting for their playoff lives here last night, but at times they were the only team playing that way.

After spotting Bridgeport the first two goals of the game, Worcester roared back to score four in a row, then held on behind the goaltending of Dmitri Paltzold (29 saves) to beat the inconsistent Sound Tigers, 4-2, and snap a two-game losing streak before an announced crowd of 2,587 at the DCU Center.

The Sharks, whose postseason heart is barely beating, didn’t gain any ground on fourth-place Springfield in the AHL’s Atlantic Division because the Falcons also won, 4-3, to maintain their eight-point bulge.

The fact that the Falcons beat Manchester helped some, because it cut Worcester’s deficit to five points behind the Monarchs, whom they also have to hurdle these last 13 games to make the playoffs.

“I tell you what, you put a little run together — I think it’s going to be three, four games over .500 will get in,” Sharks coach Roy Sommer said. “We’ve still got a long ways to go. You’ve just got to chip away and you can’t look too far down the road.”

Bridgeport remained just three points out of the final playoff spot in the East Division because fourth-place Hershey also lost, 6-2, to Albany.

Mike Iggulden got the eventual winning goal and added an assist, while Lukas Kaspar and Tom Cavanaugh had two assists each. Tom Walsh, Dan Spang and Dennis Packard scored the other Worcester goals.

The Sharks, who fell behind, 2-0, after one period in their last two games, almost did it again last night. They dug themselves another 2-0 hole, but struck for a pair of goals just 1:51 apart at the end of the period to go into the first intermission tied, 2-2, despite Bridgeport’s 15-7 edge in shots.

The Sound Tigers dominated the first half of the period and got goals from Jeremy Colliton at 5:13 on an uncontested wrist shot in front, and Trevor Smith at 11:02, also in close on the rebound of a Draw Fata shot, to go ahead. But when Tim Jackman took a totally unnecessary high-sticking penalty at 16:14, the floodgates opened for Worcester.

First, Walsh ripped a slap shot from the left point that sailed high into the right corner past goalie Mike Morrison at 16:21, just seven seconds into the Sharks’ power play. It was Walsh’s fourth goal of the season, but his second in six games.

Then, Derek Joslin’s shot from just inside the blue line was stopped by Morrison, but the rebound sat to his right, where Brennan Evans whacked at it before Packard flipped it home with 1:48 left in the period for his ninth of the season. It was Packard’s second goal in three games.

That short first-period burst by Worcester was more goals than it managed in four of its last five games.

“Real bad — awful,” Sommer said of the Sharks’ slow start. “Just not ready to play and standing around. We didn’t make any plays. Then we got that power-play goal and it kind of jumpstarted us.”

“We can’t keep doing that,” Iggulden added.

The Sharks took their first lead in the middle period when Iggulden cut loose a wrist shot from the top of the left circle that sailed past an off-balance Morrison, making it a 3-2 game at 13:01. Kaspar and Bridgeport’s Jamie Fraser were standing in front of Morrison, possibly screening him.

Iggulden’s goal was his 23rd of the season, but his first in nine games. He hadn’t scored since a hat trick against Norfolk on March 2.

Since the Sound Tigers spent much of the second period killing penalties (three minors), it’s only fitting that the Sharks would add a power-play goal, which they did with 53 seconds left in the period to take a 4-2 lead.

Spang got it, his eighth of the year and second in five games, on a rather tame one-time slap shot from the left point that Morrison seemed to casually slide over for, but didn’t make it in time.

The Sound Tigers yanked Morrison to get an extra attacker on the ice with 1:46 left to play and put some heavy pressure in the Worcester end, but Patzold was equal to the task, with Cavanaugh coming up big to block a shot during that stretch.

Patzold also delivered some big saves earlier in the third period, making a big stop on Trevor Smith in close 95 seconds into the period, and two saves against Tim Jackman, one of them on a Bridgeport power play with 6:25 left.

“That’s what you have to do,” Sommer said. “He did what he needed to do to get the win.”

Patzold shrugged off his performance, but not the urgency of the Sharks’ situation.

“Basically,” he said, “we’ve got to win almost everything right now.”

The Sharks and Bridgeport meet again here at 7 p.m. tomorrow, while Albany visits for a 7 p.m. start on Saturday. … The Sharks signed 32-year-old defenseman Brian White, a Winchester and University of Maine product, to a pro tryout. He played his first game last night. White has played for Hershey, Cincinnati and Providence in the AHL, seeing time in the playoffs last season for the P-Bruins, and played two NHL games with Colorado in 1998-99.